Another significant, but seldom-recognized problem has to do with perceptual issues.[1] A student cannot learn if she cannot see or hear what is being presented to her.[2] Very, very few public school teachers understand how perceptual systems—which directly affect learning—work in autistic students. For example: many (not all—remember: each autistic individual is different) have difficulties with auditory processing.[3] It may take them a fraction of a second longer that neurotypical students to turn spoken sounds into intelligible speech, and this is just long enough to cause significant problems, as they constantly try to play “catch-up” with the rest of the class They may also find it difficult to separate the significant sounds they are supposed to be hearing from background noise. As a result, these students are often unable to follow a lecture or video, or comply with their teacher’s spoken demands. Group work is even worse, as the autistic student struggles to separate what his or her own group is saying from what is going on in other groups around the classroom. There are work-arounds for auditory processing issues, such as special seating near the front of the classroom, close-captioning for videos, the provision of both spoken and written instructions, exemption from group work, etc. But the teacher must first be aware of the problem before solutions can be found. Many a well-meaning and thoughtful teacher has caused frustration, withdrawal, even “meltdowns,” by insisting on a phonics-based approach to reading for a student with poor auditory processing skills. For such a student, a “whole-word” approach might work better. [4]

Other autistic kids have trouble with visual processing.[5] They may be able to see clearly only with peripheral vision, in which case a teacher who insists that they “look at me” is actually ensuring that they will not see what the teacher is doing. Meares-Irlen, “Scotopic Sensitivity” or “visual stress” syndrome is also often present in autistic kids. Letters, words and numbers will appear to move around on the pages of a book or on a classroom whiteboard, making it almost impossible to follow what is being taught. Some students affected by this syndrome may be helped with colored overlays or tinted glasses.[6] When these don’t work, there are other work-arounds. My own daughter, for example, struggles with math problems because of “floating” numbers. She has developed her own (admittedly, rather time-consuming) system of writing out the problems using different colored pencils for different rows or columns. The colors helped her keep numbers in their proper places. Reading on an Ipad, with a font size large enough so that only a single line of text appears on the screen can help those with this syndrome with reading. Teachers can help students find ways to deal with visual processing issues, but—again—only if they are aware of these issues in the first place.

If students can’t make sense of what they hear or see in the classroom, they will inevitably fail in school. It is up to trained specialists to diagnose their auditory or visual problems, and it is then up to their teachers to find ways to help them overcome these perceptual issues.

[2] There are work-arounds, of course, used in schools for the deaf or blind, but most autistic students are not actually deaf or blind, so these techniques may not work for them, even in the unlikely case that they are offered them.

[3] P. Dawes, D. Bishop, T. Sirimanna, et al. [“Profile and Aetiology of Children Diagnosed with Auditory Processing Disorder (APD),” International Journal of Pediatric Otorhinolaryngology, 72 (2008), 483–89], found that about 9% of children referred to a clinic specializing in auditory processing disorders also had a diagnosis of autism; this suggests that autistic children are much more likely to have an APD than neurotypical children.

[6] The Irlen method of using colored overlays and glasses to treat these individuals remains highly controversial, but has proved life-changing for some autistic individuals. A famous example is that of the late Donna Williams, the Australian writer and autism activist.

This is a personal post, but it is also directly related to what I’m writing about autism and education. It has to do with sensory issues (specifically, auditory and visual processing disorders, both of which are quite common among people on the spectrum) and their impact on education. I have been working my way through education and special education journals, and have yet to see a single article on this subject. I would really appreciate any personal stories people might have about how they dealt with their own processing issues in school. I would also love to hear from teachers who know how to work with these issues. However, back to the personal part.

A, my amazing daughter on the spectrum, is now at university, where she is doing a fantastic job–except for being stuck in math limbo. She has switched her major from Special Education (which required one math course) to Psychology (which requires a different math course). Even though she is good at math (not a prodigy, but way better than average), she has not yet been able to complete either of these math courses, and this is holding her back from work in her major.

Math course #1 (for Special Ed), was math concepts for future teachers. It actually sounded really interesting. Unfortunately, it was taught entirely through group work, in a crowded room with poor acoustics. A has an auditory processing disorder (diagnosed early in life), which makes it very difficult for her to follow what’s going on under those circumstances. Because she couldn’t hear, she couldn’t finish the math course. This was one of the reasons she changed her major.

Math course #2 is the course her college requires before she can take the Psychology statistics course. Now, as it happens, she already took (and got an A) in statistics at our local community college while she was still in high school. The university gave her credit for that course, but the Psychology Department won’t accept it as THEIR statistics course for reasons that we still can’t figure out. So she needs to take their stats course. But before she’s allowed into that course, she needs to take a sort of fundamentals of math course.

It’s possible to place out of the course if you either get a high enough score on the ACT or SAT exam, or if you do well enough on the university’s own placement exam. This has proved impossible because of her visual processing disorder. We knew she was having visual issues for years, but she was only diagnosed fairly recently with Meares-Irlen syndrome, which makes words and numbers dance around on the page she’s trying to read. She has no problem reading text on her Kindle, because it allows her to increase the font size and the spacing between lines to limit the confusing movement. But the placement exam is given ONLY on the university’s computer, with no way to compensate for the visual problems. So–after three unsuccessful tries at the placement exam, she has been relegated to a remedial math course, which will allow her to take the fundamentals course, which will then finally allow her to take the statistics course that she already passed in community college two years ago.